1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a method and system for using paper document satchels. In particular, the invention is directed to encoding areas of a paper document so that those areas may be scanned into a processing system in order to access additional documents, information, etc.
2. Description of Related Art
Modern electronic document processing systems generally include input scanners for electronically capturing the general appearance of the document, general purpose computers for enabling users to create, edit and otherwise manipulate electronic documents, and printers for producing hard copy, human-readable versions of electronic documents. These systems typically have convenient access to mass memory for storage and retrieval of electronic document files. Moreover, they often are networked by local area networks (LANs), switched data links, and the like for facilitating the interchange of digital electronic documents and for providing multi-user access to shared system resources, such as high-speed electronic printers and electronic file servers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,486,686 to Zdybel, Jr. et al., issued Jan. 23, 1996, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, discusses the transfer of electronic documents between electronic document processing systems. Electronic documents can be transferred in the form of what may be termed as document satchels. Document satchels may be, for example, small low-power, interactive devices such as pagers or cellular phones for easily exchanging electronic documents or for requesting common operations, such as printing. Document satchels can take many forms with different attributes. Document satchels are characterized by their portability, facility for carrying a set of document tokens, facility for carrying identity information about the owner, and facility for communicating with the infrastructure in other document satchels to perform abstract operations on tokens in a streamlined way.
Apart from the portability, each of these features requires some explanation. Satchels are fundamentally devices for trafficking in tokens. A token has two parts, the reference and the access information. Basically, a token is a pointer to a document, not a copy of a document. Since it is a pointer, a token is relatively small in size and multiple tokens can be stored in a small space, such as the memory available in a simple device.
In addition, a token is more than a simple reference because it includes access information. The access information part of a token can accommodate a number of different types of data. Security data is a prime example. Other possibilities include indications of pricing, legal restrictions, or ratings.
Moreover, access information might be useful to help a user deal with a document, such as a record of where the document is stored in the holder's hierarchy, or a human-readable string identifying the document. Most, if not all, of these supplementary types of data would be optional and unused for some documents. In general, however, the access information part of tokens would make them awkward to transfer by hand copying, dictation or similar methods. A facility for electronic transfer of these document references would be truly valuable.
Associated with each satchel is information which identifies the owner. That information is used to add context to the record of a token transfer. The recipient of a token can later find it by the identity of the person who furnished it, or by the location in which the transfer took place, if location information was available. Different items could be included in the identity information, such as the owner's name, e-mail address, telephone number and public key for signing secure messages.
The ability to communicate makes a satchel useful. In order to serve mobile workers well, satchel designers have selected certain common document operations which would be very simple to perform. Central to all of these operations is the transfer of tokens.
The user interface for this operation would be very simple because the physical and communication contexts narrow the range of possible actions. Other operations, such as printing or faxing a copy of a document, can be handled in a very similar way from the user's point of view. However, there are important pieces of infrastructure which operate behind the scenes to make the user-level simplicity possible. For example, when a token is transferred with a user's identity to a printer for printing the document, the satchel print service may need to take a number of steps to complete the operation. Initially, the document itself must be obtained, which may require authentication and/or electronic payment. If a printable version of the document is not available from the original repository, a conversion service must be invoked to produce a version suitable for the target printer. Finally, the job must be submitted for printing using whatever mechanisms are appropriate, including handling of authentication and billing, if required.
Conventionally, as shown in FIG. 1, tokens are generated by a token generator 110 located in a first CPU 105. These document tokens can be transferred to a second CPU 145 over a distributed network through the network interfaces 135 and 140.
Alternatively, the document tokens can be transferred to a first information bus 115, where they may be stored in a first memory 120, on a first hard disk 125 or sent to a first floppy disk drive 130 for storage on a floppy disk 170.
The floppy disk 170 can then be input into a second computer system through a second floppy disk drive 155. The tokens input from the floppy disk 170 can then be sent through a second information bus 150 to the second CPU 145 of the second computer system, or they may be stored on a second hard disk 160 or in a second memory 165.
Thus, by transferring the tokens electronically, copying and carrying paper documents can be avoided because references to electronic versions of paper documents can be conveniently handled instead.
However, paper documents are still a primary medium for written communications and for record keeping. Paper documents can be easily replicated by photocopying, they can be distributed and filed in original or photocopied form, and facsimiles of paper documents can be transmitted to remote locations over the public switched telephone network. Paper and other hard copy documents are so pervasive that they are not only a common output product of electronic document processing systems, but also are an important source of input data to such systems.